Jack Hittinger '08 contributes his top picks for 2008
Jack Hittinger Special to the Collegian
Issue date: 1/22/09 Section: Arts
Portishead, "Third" - Trip-hop isn't really their thing anymore, but this English three-piece has turned in a eerie third album (after 11 years) of sparse, claustrophobic beats and instrumentals. Beth Gibbons' voice is haunting, and the production is fantastic-most of the album sounds like it's just her sitting in a quiet room singing while Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley's "instruments" in the background sound like incidental music. Its rare when all the elements of an album work so well together that every sound just feels like it belongs. But this is it.
Walkmen, "You & Me" - I read somewhere that this was an album about "growing up." Sounds good to me. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser sounds earnest, as always, when he sings lines like "I know that its true / It's gonna be a good year / Out of the darkness / And into the fire / I tell you I love you." Plus the band brought back their upright pianos and vintage-sounding organs and added them to the horn section and plain old guitars. It's rollicking.
Q-Tip, "The Renaissance" - First solo album from legendary A Tribe Called Quest MC in nine years, and he hasn't missed a jazzy beat. We all missed him, too. As he says on the opening track, "What good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn't in it?" Listen to the album, the answer will present itself.
Cut Copy, "In Ghost Colours" - Australian electro-dance-rock that kills. Think New Order with less robotics and a sense of humor. Utterly groove-able.
Times New Viking, "Rip It Off" - Ultra lo-fi three piece from Columbus. You could call them indie pop if they didn't hide their hooks behind so much noise and fuzz.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!" - Nick Cave is a funny man with a funny mustache. And a funny Australian voice where he half sings, half talks over funny garage rock blues. It's a modern-day Biblical epic. Plus Hillsdale English majors will appreciate the pean to literary theory, "We Call Upon the Author [To Explain]."
Spiritualized, "Songs in A&E" - "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" is without question one of the best albums of the 1990s. It invented "space rock" as a genre (think psychedelia with an emphasis on prescription medication rather than LSD). "Songs in A&E" is less psychedelic than blues. Or gospel. Or...orchestral? Whatever it is, it transports you somewhere for an hour. Maybe it is psych rock after all...
Black Mountain, "In the Future" - The more things change, the more they stay the same. Modern day psych rock in the Floyd and Sabbath vein. Is it derivative? Absolutely. But they do it well enough to convince you that they might actually be from the 1970s when this stuff was new.
Vampire Weekend, "Vampire Weekend" - Biggest buzz band of 2008. Wanna hate them? OK. I still kind of hate them too, those pretentious Ivy League a-holes. But the songs here...35 minutes of pop bliss, with a little Paul Simon "Graceland"-era experimentation to boot.
Wale, "The Mixtape About Nothing" - The Washington, D.C., based MC says he's seen every episode of "Seinfeld" 30 times, and uses themes and samples of the show as the basis for his album. The catch? He actually raps about something, like the use of the "n-word" in society (think Kramer's meltdown) and artistic integrity and rappers who aren't very well read.
Jack Hittinger '08 is the sports editor of the Daily Guide in Waynesville, Mo and the former 'de facto' Collegian music critic. He doesn't have a "favorite album" or a "favorite band" because he finds the terms too limiting. He's only sort of joking about this. You should probably be glad he is gone.
Walkmen, "You & Me" - I read somewhere that this was an album about "growing up." Sounds good to me. Frontman Hamilton Leithauser sounds earnest, as always, when he sings lines like "I know that its true / It's gonna be a good year / Out of the darkness / And into the fire / I tell you I love you." Plus the band brought back their upright pianos and vintage-sounding organs and added them to the horn section and plain old guitars. It's rollicking.
Q-Tip, "The Renaissance" - First solo album from legendary A Tribe Called Quest MC in nine years, and he hasn't missed a jazzy beat. We all missed him, too. As he says on the opening track, "What good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn't in it?" Listen to the album, the answer will present itself.
Cut Copy, "In Ghost Colours" - Australian electro-dance-rock that kills. Think New Order with less robotics and a sense of humor. Utterly groove-able.
Times New Viking, "Rip It Off" - Ultra lo-fi three piece from Columbus. You could call them indie pop if they didn't hide their hooks behind so much noise and fuzz.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!" - Nick Cave is a funny man with a funny mustache. And a funny Australian voice where he half sings, half talks over funny garage rock blues. It's a modern-day Biblical epic. Plus Hillsdale English majors will appreciate the pean to literary theory, "We Call Upon the Author [To Explain]."
Spiritualized, "Songs in A&E" - "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" is without question one of the best albums of the 1990s. It invented "space rock" as a genre (think psychedelia with an emphasis on prescription medication rather than LSD). "Songs in A&E" is less psychedelic than blues. Or gospel. Or...orchestral? Whatever it is, it transports you somewhere for an hour. Maybe it is psych rock after all...
Black Mountain, "In the Future" - The more things change, the more they stay the same. Modern day psych rock in the Floyd and Sabbath vein. Is it derivative? Absolutely. But they do it well enough to convince you that they might actually be from the 1970s when this stuff was new.
Vampire Weekend, "Vampire Weekend" - Biggest buzz band of 2008. Wanna hate them? OK. I still kind of hate them too, those pretentious Ivy League a-holes. But the songs here...35 minutes of pop bliss, with a little Paul Simon "Graceland"-era experimentation to boot.
Wale, "The Mixtape About Nothing" - The Washington, D.C., based MC says he's seen every episode of "Seinfeld" 30 times, and uses themes and samples of the show as the basis for his album. The catch? He actually raps about something, like the use of the "n-word" in society (think Kramer's meltdown) and artistic integrity and rappers who aren't very well read.
Jack Hittinger '08 is the sports editor of the Daily Guide in Waynesville, Mo and the former 'de facto' Collegian music critic. He doesn't have a "favorite album" or a "favorite band" because he finds the terms too limiting. He's only sort of joking about this. You should probably be glad he is gone.
Be the first to comment on this story